~ Writing & Coffee. Especially coffee.

It all comes out in the wash.

A few years ago, I made a big mistake: I let my husband move to England before me. By the time I got here, he had already acquired the household basics. “But don’t worry,” he assured me. “I did just what you would do and got them on sale.” Oh, yeah, I was scared too. Luckily, he equated little and cheap with “on sale” so most of the POS dollhouse-sized crap items barely outlasted their six-month warranties, with only a few exceptions. That adorable little fridge can still chill almost a whole six-pack.

Then there was the washing machine he bought. Actually, it was a combo washer/dryer, and it made its home in the kitchen, a convenient location because its optimal load was about one pair of jeans. Or—if you wanted them to come out dry—one leg of a pair of jeans. This amazing mechanical feat took about five hours per load. So basically, I ran the thing 24/7, taking the (still-soggy) clothes out and draping them over every available surface. Then each and every board-stiff, crunchy item had to be ironed. No really. Everything. (Use your imagination. Yup. Those too.)

I tried to explain to the Village Brain Trust (ie Village Coffee Morning regulars) that very few Americans ironed their dishtowels. Or their knickers. A few admitted that they had heard such crazy talk before, but dismissed it as blatant anti-American propaganda. “I saw them ironing on Frasier,” I was told. More than once. Actually, once they learned that I was from Seattle, they asked if I’d ever met any of the Frasier cast. The show apparently attained cult status here, perhaps because of its ironing expertise. When I confessed that I’d never seen Frasier, I think several of them wondered whether I was actually some kind of foreign spy. Maybe from Wales.

How Americans Iron–

Like my dog, the washer was prone to fits. Every few months, my clothes washer wrinkler nemesis would regurgitate all the water in its tank, and have to be emptied by hand, usually when something urgent was occurring in the kitchen (like this).

Digression: I had a philosophy professor back in the day who said two things I remember. One was that cogito ergo sum actually means “I am thinking, therefore I exist”. The other was that it is impossible to hate inanimate objects. I disproved the first statement the first time I went to a professional football game , where I discovered that it is completely possible for large numbers of people to exist quite convincingly without doing any thinking at all. The second one went when I realized that what I felt for that washing machine was no less than pure, unadulterated loathing.

But I must have been banking some serious karma, because last month a miracle happened. The washer broke. The repairman who gave me the terminal diagnosis said that most people don’t dance at such news, and he usually sees very little singing. Then he told me that I was in luck because it was Black Friday and there were sales going.

Okay, another digression. Sue me. Here in England, they are a bit Black-Friday-challenged because a Thanksgiving holiday celebrating the Pilgrims’ successful escape from religious persecution in England has never really caught on here. So they can’t really have Black Friday shoppers trampling each other the day after Thanksgiving to get into Marks & Spencer for the doorbuster deals. Not to mention the fact that it’s England: they’d just queue up in an orderly fashion and if anyone attempted to jump queue, they would look at him very severely. There might even be throat-clearing.

As far as I can tell, they choose a random Friday in the lead-up to Christmas, and put washing machines on special. But here’s the good part. They have washers AND dryers. Cogito, ergo volo siccis vestibus! (I am thinking, therefore I want dry clothes.)

Tell me again why you have to wash my toys every day?

As a writer, I’m all about the HEA. (Happily Ever After) I’m not saying I’m obsessed with my new washer and dryer. It’s just that I’m so enchanted by the concept of doing an entire load of laundry in less than an hour that I roam the house looking for anything which might have touched the ground or human skin and thus needs immediate laundering. When the kids visited over the holidays, they told me I had a problem, and wondered if there was a 12-step program for compulsive launderers. Just because I tried to get them to give me the clothes they were wearing “for a quick wash”.

Cogito ergo quidam iudicent. (I’m thinking some people are so judgey…)

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191 thoughts on “It all comes out in the wash.”

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Thank you for the laugh and the insight on the combo unit…we are moving to a small home soonish and gave some thought to the space saving…but wondered about the time-saving, as it seemed in the stats to take a long time to do a load. Guess it does. And though I iron the occasional skirt or dress shirt, I’m not up for much else that would need pressing. So, so pleased to meet you on this glorious blitz day!

I think if your buying strategy isn’t “Go for the one with a clearance sign that is closest to the door so you won’t have to talk to an actual human”, you’ll find that there is a spectrum of the combo models out there that range from “it would save time and energy to rinse clothes out in the sink and dry them with your hair drier” to “will actually wash/dry clothes in less time than it takes to watch the all LOTR movies.”

Good luck with the move. And stand your ground tall and proud on the (non)ironing! The world’s wrinkled masses are behind you (where, hopefully, their moms won’t notice the state of their shirts…)

Too funny! Congratulations on the new washer/dryer, Barb. You definitely paid your dues. I’m not a big ironer (is that a word?). While I wear a lot of cotton shirts during the summer months that require ironing before I face the public, I handle this challenge by changing clothes before I go out. 🙂

Ah, yes the old shirt-switcheroo. The only other option is to live in New York, where your most sacred personal relationship will be with the laundry lady around the corner. (The other advantage to New York, of course, is that you can get great food brought to your door 24/7, so you can use the oven to store the clean and ironed clothing.)

What a fabulous story! I have a friend who is in London at the moment and the complains about the lack of space, and the laundry. I got lost in that Frasier snippet. I loved that show. LOL Really enjoyed reading. 🙂http://www.CorinneOFlynn.com

Thanks, Corinne! I still don’t get Frasier or ironing, but I hope your friend is enjoying London. You should go visit her. Bring your laundry, mwahahaha. My daughter and I bolt for London a couple times a year to eat at Chipotles. (Don’t judge. Along with space/laundry issues, England just does NOT get Tex-Mex)

Thanks for the Blitz, Tanya! Queue-jumping reactions are very country-specific. I was standing in the (eternal) passport control line at Heathrow and and a well-dressed man cut in front of me. There followed much indignant glaring, throat clearing, and finally an indignant, “Really!”. But it took a pair of angry American backpackers complaining to a security guard to evict him. Contrast that with my trip to Venice a few months ago. We were on the vaporetto (water bus) and a beautiful, expensively dressed girl cut in front of a pair of little old ladies to snag two of the handicap-logo seats (she had shopping bags). Immediately the two black-clad women approached. They harangued the girl, who simply smiled and said something in Russian. Infuriated, the women appealed to all around them, with much hand gesturing. Voices escalated, and soon most of the boat was involved. About the time I thought there would be violence, the girl shrugged again and stood up. Triumphantly, the two elderly women took her place, but continued scolding until she was driven, defeated, from the vaporetto. I wanted to move to Italy and start wearing all black.

Luckily, it would never have occurred to my husband to buy a vacuum, so I was able to do a little research and get one with enough suction to practically hang from the ceiling. More important, it can handle the output of a long-haired dog. Thanks for the Blitz!

This post absolutely cracked me up! I spent a summer in (South) Korea and we didn’t have dryers at all! Everything got hung to dry, or carted wet to the one laundromat 1/2 mile away, to get dried.
Happy Blitz Day!

Well, I can kind of get the whole line-drying concept (except for the ironing, of course). But the problem I have is that I now live in Scotland. MONTHS can go by without a glimpse of the sun. So your house acquires a kind permanent eau-d’wet-garment aroma.

I totally get what you’re saying. Yes, I’ve had a stackable washer/drying…while I had 3 little kids, one being an infant and another one year old. Feel free to hate. I also had a pitcher–yes, you read right, pitcher–that took my rage to new heights. As in, it was impossible to clean. It was a “quick stir” pitcher and a wedding gift. About two years into our marriage when I confessed to my husband how much I HATED the thing, he said simply, “Well then, why don’t you throw it away?” And I did. That very moment. I had never felt so free… =)

Wedding gifts from hell! For us it was the folding 3-tier silver cake server that would tarnish just from…actually, it was ALWAYS tarnished. I just knew that the second I pitched that sucker, Great-Aunt Mehitabel would visit expecting to be served cake on the (untarnished) damn thing. This actually happened twice before I wised up and told her it had been lost—along with the velvet painting from Aunt Josie—on the last move. This was only moderately successful. I was allowed to present cake on a regular plate, but Aunt Josie sent an even bigger velvet painting.

No, no, no! Repeat after me: it is our birthright as Americans to never, ever iron jeans. It’s a slippery slope from an ironed in crease up the middle of your jeans leg to polyester pants with elastic waists. You must always be on your guard.

“if anyone attempted to jump queue, they would look at him very severely. There might even be throat-clearing.” <–I'm imagining this as Professor McGonagall 🙂 And since I'm going to be living in London for a few months in a little bit, it's good to know that I should brush up on my Frasier knowledge (haven't seen either).

You just don’t know how much you love a washing machine until it breaks. In your case, I’m surprised you didn’t put a hit out on yours. Glad you’re enjoying the new one. I’ll just be happy to get my old one working again (especially since tomorrow is laundry day). Happy Blitz Day!!!! 🙂

Having lived in the UK in a student house with the absolute cheapest washer imaginable and water so hard my towels never actually became “fluffy” again no matter how much softener I throw at them (who needs fluff when you can have sandpaper?) I sympathise entirely! Glad you finally managed to get the new combo!

Thanks Barb, a great article and totally accurate with regard to Brits (being one myself and an avid fan of Frasier – not so the ironing thingy, not doing that, no way) Congratulations on your new acquisitions, sounds like you deserve them.

When we lived in the Castle, we kept warm via a demanding woodstove. Now that we live in the Hobbit House, we have a boiler, radiators, and (the new love of my husband’s life) a thermostat named Mildred. I hope you’ve graduated to better heat and laundry facilities.

OMG! So funny! I had an itty-bitty washer many moons ago. I could roll it to the kitchen sink and attach a hose to fill it up. If I was lucky I could do one twin sheet at a time! No dryer… everything was hung out on the line.

That’s so funny! Our first dishwasher worked that way too. And about that well… We finally ended up using it like a giant, rolling dish drying rack. I hope you’ve graduated to better laundry facilities.

Hmmm, I popped in to help surprise YOU with the rest of the blitz gang, and instead, you ended up surprising ME. By your post, I mean. It was one of the most enjoyable posts I’ve read in a long time. Gee, maybe you should be a writer…. um, never mind… HA! (I guess ya know I’m gonna have to check out your books, now…)

Barb, you are a rig! I love your humor and I share this same laundry wisdom-as you. My spouse bought a washing machine that can wash every blanket on our bed, but we still had the same tiny dryer?!
I love my new dryer ;D

Hooray! I’m a rig. (What’s a rig?) What is it about men and dryers? My theory is that men will happily get into jobs that don’t involve their hands getting wet. So wash dishes/clothes/bathrooms? No, there must be a technology solution for that. Cue the dishwasher, washing machine, and that weird spray thingie that zaps the shower every time you finish up in there. But a dryer? WTF?

Sounds like your husband had good intentions in getting things up and running. That counts for something! There’s nothing like a good washer and dryer. Doing laundry is usually not my idea of a good time so, like you, I aim to get that stuff done in an hour or less if I can help it.

Have a Happy BLITZ and Here’s to your new washer and dryer! May they work well to complete lots of loads for you in a timely fashion 🙂

This has got to be one of the funniest posts I’ve read in a very long time! Thanks for making my evening! I especially loved “if anyone attempted to jump queue, they would look at him very severely. There might even be throat-clearing.” Now, I’ve never been to England, but I can only imagine that scenario. Priceless!

I love your doggie. My Sophie looks at me the same way when I take her toys to wash as well. Can’t have them smelling like her ‘ba-ba’ all the time. 🙂

You’ve just gained a new follower. Thanks for sharing and for the record, you’ve just been BLITZED!! Enjoy it! Have a great day. Eva

I’m feeling the washer and dryer love/hate thing. Funny about Black Friday. My daughter was studying in Morocco over Thanksgiving and suffered serious turkey deprivation. The two of us decided it should be world-wide Thanksgiving next year. Happy Blitz!!!!

I like your idea, but somehow they just don’t see Thanksgiving the same way here. Turkey and stuffing and cranberries are THE Christmas menu of choice, so it’s hard to even get a whole turkey if you’re having your “Christmas meal” a month early. I had to get up at dawn and drive north to an organic turkey farm. On the way back to the car with my (OMG! Did I really just pay £100 for this?) turkey in my arms, I was surrounded by his squawking free-range girlfriends. I had a feeling they were all screaming, “She’s got Tom! Get her!” So…that was fun.

Hysterically funny video of Niles. I remember that episode too. I know, I know…No, lilicasplace is not my twin, it’s my other blog. 🙂 Both of them are involved in the Blitz…because we love Blitzing people! And you, my dear, have just been Blitzed by me AGAIN! Soooo, Happy Blog Blitz Day. I love that I get to do it twice. 😀

Love this post! I’m smiling from ear to ear. I have a washer and dryer thing too. (I now own an HE washer that gives me great delight.) As for the washer/dryer combo, my husband and I rented an apartment in Paris that housed one of those atrocities. And printed on a sheet of paper mounted above the “thing” was the admonition, “Do not run the machine in the evening as the noise irritates the neighbors.” So, you know, we could wash one leg of one pair of jeans per day. I learned to wash undies in the sink and let them air dry.

Back in the States, we had an HE washer that came with its own DVD. I’d find my husband and the cat down in the laundry room, studying the video manual with the mega-gazillion wash cycle combinations, or just watching the clothes through the little round window. Sigh. Good times.

Thanks for the smiles and for the Blitz! May your HE continue to enrich your life!

How did you put up with that teeny washer for so long? Never fear, your compulsion to wash will fade as the newness wears off. You slayed me with your descriptions of the Brits smiling severely at line jumpers. I lived in Naples, Italy, for a few years and traveled to London a few times during that period. The Brits were so incredibly orderly but the Neapolitans won’t stand in a line for anything. (They won’t drive in marked lanes either, but that’s another story.)

Queue-jumping reactions are very country-specific. I was standing in the (eternal) passport control line at Heathrow and and a well-dressed man cut in front of me. There followed much indignant glaring, throat clearing, and the occasional sotto voce, “Really!”. But it took a pair of angry American backpackers complaining to a security guard to evict him. Contrast that with my trip to Venice a few months ago. We were on the vaporetto (water bus) and a beautiful, expensively dressed girl cut in front of a pair of little old ladies to snag two of the handicap-logo seats (she had shopping bags). Immediately the two black-clad women approached. They harangued the girl, who simply smiled and said something in Russian. Infuriated, the women appealed to all around them, with much hand gesturing. Voices escalated, and soon most of the boat was involved. About the time I thought there would be violence, the girl shrugged again and stood up. Triumphantly, the two elderly women took her place, but continued scolding until she was driven, defeated, from the vaporetto. I wanted to move to Italy and start wearing all black.

Well, actually it was a combo guilt-load of Catholic school upbringing and Jewish momhood. There was NO way I could pull the plug on a (relatively) functioning appliance. But you better believe I happy-danced on its grave! Thanks so much for the Blitz.

I’m so happy you got a new set – with a dryer! I had a hate relationship with my last washer and had never hated an appliance so much in my life. When I got my new set I was totally in love – what a difference. 🙂

I’m so glad you stopped by. Sorry to hear about the blizzard though. Here in Scotland we had high winds that knocked down our fence and blew over some (solid cedar!) garden furniture. My brother in California says it’s tough there too—he had to turn the heater on in the pool. Maybe you could hold him down while I pound him?

Well, Frasier is set in Seattle…but I’ve never met anyone there who is particularly into it. And now that I have my beautiful new laundry set, I’m a born-again launderer. If you’re ever in Glasgow, stop by for a cuppa and I’ll throw in a load of wash for you!

You take me back, Barb. Laundry in Europe is the single biggest pain in the ass. We had three different washers — two of which washed only on SClding hot? That temperature turns your young boy’s socks and underwear pink. I shudder to recall how many billions of loads I did.

It’s a concept thing that we also didn’t really grasp. (Yes, my husband is proud owner of several delicately pink undergarments that he avoids like the plague on days he’s going to the gym. Am I a bad person for enjoying that he ignored my warnings to separate colors?) But I have to admit that the whole concept of doing wash at lobster-boil temps that fuse wrinkles into every square inch…well, I just don’t get it. And then there is the “condenser” dryer which works (I’m not making this up) by ADDING water, and superheating it so that the moisture on the clothes condenses. Yeah, right. Sure it does…

Thanks for the chuckle about ironing and the Frasier video. It has been my experience that if one uses the timer on the smartphone, clothes can be removed from the dryer ASAP and avoid the whole “ironing hassle”.

One of the (few) advantages to only replacing cars and appliances when they’ve attained double-digit ages is that when we finally do go to buy, the new-to-us bells and whistles that now come standard just astonish us. Take my new dryer, for example. It beeps to tell when the load is done, and then resumes spinning with another discrete beep every ten minutes or so until I can get to it. Voila! No wrinkles (or at least, none that have me reaching for an iron). Life is so good!

Hi Barb! I saw this on #SundayBlogShare and clicked on it, then was horrified at the fact that I was NOT following your blog. Say what?? I am so glad I clicked because this is a hilarious and fantastic post! It made my Sunday! Loved every single word you wrote. 🙂

Happy belated blitz! Love your commentary on cogito ergo sum. And I miss Frasier. But we moved from Montreal to Geneva and got a washer and aren’t able to have a drier in the apartment and I still don’t have an iron…

WHERE DID NULL CITY BOOKS GO?

I've split with my publisher, so books 1-4 are getting a makeover in time for the release of OPEN FARE, the final NULL CITY book. If you'd like to join the Beta Reader team, please send email (barbtaub (at) gmail (dot) com. I'll send you my undying thanks plus advanced readers copies of all books, including the upcoming OPEN FARE.